Castes and Tribes of Southern India. Vol. 2 of 7

by Edgar Thurston

“Dāsis or Dēva-dāsis (handmaidens of the gods) are dancing-girls attached to the Tamil temples, who subsist by dancing and music, and the practice of ‘the oldest profession in the world.’ The Dāsis were probably in the beginning the result of left-handed unions between members of two different castes, but they are now partly recruited by admissions, and even purchases, from other classes. The profession is not now held in the consideration it once enjoyed. Formerly they enjoyed a considerable social position. It is one of the many inconsistencies of the Hindu religion that, though their profession is repeatedly and vehemently condemned by the Shāstras, it has always received the countenance of the church. The rise of the caste, and its euphemistic name, seem both of them to date from about the ninth and tenth centuries A.D., during which much activity prevailed in Southern India in the matter of building temples, and elaborating the services held in them. The dancing-girls’ duties, then as now, were to fan the idol with chamaras (Tibetan ox tails), to carry the sacred light called kumbarti, and to sing and dance before the god when he was carried in procession. Inscriptions[11] show that, in A.D. 1004, the great temple of the Chōla king Rājarāja at Tanjore had attached to it four hundred talic’ chēri pendugal, or women of the temple, who lived in free quarters in the four streets round about it, and were allowed tax-free land out of the endowment. Other temples had similar arrangements. At the beginning of the last century there were a hundred dancing-girls attached to the temple at Conjeeveram, who were, Buchanan tells us,[12] ‘kept for the honour of the deities and the amusement of their votaries; and any familiarity between these girls and an infidel would occasion scandal.’ At Madura, Conjeeveram, and Tanjore there are still numbers of them, who receive allowances from the endowments of the big temples at these places. In former days, the profession was countenanced not only by the church, but also by the State. Abdur Razaak, a Turkish ambassador at the court of Vijayanagar in the fifteenth century, describes[13] women of this class as living in State-controlled institutions, the revenue of which went towards the upkeep of the police.

“At the present day they form a regular caste, having its own laws of inheritance, its own customs and rules of etiquette, and its own panchāyats (councils) to see that all these are followed, and thus hold a position, which is perhaps without a parallel in any other country. Dancing-girls, dedicated to the usual profession of the caste, are formally married in a temple to a sword or a god, the tāli (marriage badge) being tied round their necks by some men of their caste. It was a standing puzzle to the census enumerators whether such women should be entered as married in the column referring to civil condition.

“Among the Dāsis, sons and daughters inherit equally, contrary to ordinary Hindu usage. Some of the sons remain in the caste, and live by playing music for the women to dance to, and accompaniments to their songs, or by teaching singing and dancing to the younger girls, and music to the boys. These are called Nattuvans. Others marry some girl of the caste, who is too plain to be likely to be a success in the profession, and drift out of the community. Some of these affix to their names the terms Pillai and Mudali, which are the usual titles of the two castes (Vellāla and Kaikōla) from which most of the Dāsis are recruited, and try to live down the stigma attaching to their birth. Others join the Mēlakkārans or professional musicians. Cases have occurred, in which wealthy sons of dancing-women have been allowed to marry girls of respectable parentage of other castes, but they are very rare. The daughters of the caste, who are brought up to follow the caste profession, are carefully taught dancing, singing, the art of dressing well, and the ars amoris, and their success in keeping up their clientele is largely due to the contrast which they thus present to the ordinary Hindu housewife, whose ideas are bounded by the day’s dinner and the babies. The dancing-girl castes, and their allies the Mēlakkārans, are now practically the sole repository of Indian music, the system of which is probably one of the oldest in the world. Besides them and the Brāhmans, few study the subject. The barbers’ bands of the villages usually display more energy than science. A notable exception, however, exists in Madras city, which has been known to attempt the Dead March in Saul at funerals in the Pariah quarters.

“There are two divisions among the Dāsis, called Valangai (right-hand) and Idangai (left-hand). The chief distinction between them is that the former will have nothing to do with the Kammālans (artisans) or any other of the left-hand castes, or play or sing in their houses. The latter division is not so particular, and its members are consequently sometimes known as the Kammāla Dāsis. Neither division, however, is allowed to have any dealings with men of the lowest castes, and violation of this rule of etiquette is tried by a panchāyat of the caste, and visited with excommunication.

“In the Telugu districts, the dancing-girls are called Bōgams and Sānis. They are supposed to be dedicated to the gods, just as the Dāsis are, but there is only one temple in the northern part of the Presidency which maintains a corps of these women in the manner in vogue further south. This exception is the shrine of Srī Kurmam in Vizagapatam, the dancing-girls attached to which are known as Kurmapus. In Vizagapatam most of the Bōgams and Sānis belong to the Nāgavāsulu and Palli castes, and their male children often call themselves Nāgavāsulus, but in Nellore, Kurnool and Bellary they are often Balijas and Yerukalas. In Nellore the Bōgams are said to decline to sing in the houses of Kōmatis. The men of the Sānis do not act as accompanists to their women at nautch parties, as Bōgam and Dāsi men do.

“In the Oriya country the dancing-girl caste is called Guni, but there they have even less connection with the temples than the Bōgams and Sānis, not being even dedicated to the god.

“In the Canarese (or western) tāluks of Bellary, and in the adjoining parts of Dharwar and Mysore, a curious custom obtains among the Bōyas, Bēdarus, and certain other castes, under which a family which has no male issue must dedicate one of its daughters as a Basavi. The girl is taken to a temple, and married there to the god, a tāli and toe-rings being put on her, and thenceforward she becomes a public woman, except that she does not consort with any one of lower caste than herself. She is not, however, despised on this account, and indeed at weddings she prepares the tāli (perhaps because she can never be a widow). Contrary to all Hindu Law, she shares in the family property as though she was a son, but her right to do so has not yet been confirmed by the Civil Courts. If she has a son, he takes her father’s name, but if only a daughter, that daughter again becomes a Basavi. The children of Basavis marry within their own caste, without restrictions of any kind.

“In Malabar there is no regular community of dancing-girls; nor is there among the Mussalmans of any part of the Presidency.”

“No doubt,” Monier Williams writes,[14] “Dāsis drive a profitable trade under the sanction of religion, and some courtesans have been known to amass enormous fortunes. Nor do they think it inconsistent with their method of making money to spend it in works of piety. Here and there Indian bridges and other useful public works owe their existence to the liberality of the frail sisterhood.” The large tank (lake) at Channarayapatna in Mysore was built by two dancing-girls.

In the Travancore Census Report, 1901, the Dāsis of the Coromandel coast are compared, in the words of a Sanskrit poet, to walking flesh-trees bearing golden fruits. The observant Abbé Dubois noticed that, of all the women in India, it is especially the courtesans who are the most decently clothed, as experience has taught them that for a woman to display her charms damps sensual ardour instead of exciting it, and that the imagination is more easily captivated than the eye.